NICOLAUS STENO’S "CHAOS." AN OVERLOOKED DOCUMENT FROM THE 17TH CENTURY SHEDS LIGHT ON GEOLOGY'S PLACE IN THE SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS REVOLUTIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE

Nicolaus Steno wrote “Chaos” in 1659 during his last months of study at the University of Copenhagen. The title refers to the Biblical story of creation and to the document’s unordered but annotated contents: excerpts of and references to writings of key figures involved in the Scientific Revolution including Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Paracelsus, Descartes, Bacon, Borel, Kircher, and Borch.

Translated from Latin into English in 1997 by August Ziggelaar, “Chaos” is one of the most important documents on the origin of modern geologic thought that has come to light, yet it remains largely unknown. It contains no hint of the founding, stratigraphic principles of geology that would be in the “Prodromus” of 1669. However, the document manifests the same interest in the geometric structure of nature evident in the “Prodromus” and which I asserted (2001, 2002) makes Steno an heir to the Renaissance tradition that Leonardo and other artists established 200 years earlier. Further, as both Jens Morten Hansen (2000) and I (2002) noted, the realization that objects in nature have form was prerequisite to modern evolutionary theory, so “Chaos” is pivotal for several sciences, not just physical geology.

“Chaos” is, according to Ziggelaar (1997), “…a rare document revealing how a genius prepares for his task.” It also reveals tensions between the medieval-alchemical, spiritual-Scriptural, and naturalistic-empirical concepts of the structure of matter and of the Earth. It starts with Dutch physician Cornelius Schylander's (1577) rejection of the Aristotelian concept that earth, air, fire, and water compose the human body because the idea contradicts Scripture. Steno reflects upon the microcosm-macrocosm duality of the human body and of Earth, but he also speculates on the material zonation of the Earth. He shows an alchemical interest in the divine order and usefulness of materials in Nature and Art, making “Chaos” a 17th Cy curiosity cabinet of sorts, for modern museologists (notably Camilla Mordhorst’s 2002 appraisal of Ole Worm’s collection), recognize that they were displays with the same alchemical purpose. Yet Steno was avowedly empirical, writing that he trusted only his own observations and experiments.

In short, Steno's "Chaos" reveals how the tensions that stretched from the Renaissance to the Reformation and on to the Scientific Revolution shaped modern geologic thought.